Major Nelson: MS gives away free arcade game due to recent XBL hiccups.

[nintenho]

http://www.majornelson.com/

Dear Xbox LIVE Members:
During this past holiday season you helped us break a number of Xbox LIVE records. This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke the record for the single biggest day of concurrent members ever on the service.
As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break. While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance. I would like to take this moment to thank you each and every one of you for your patience and understanding as our team has worked around the clock to return the service to a stable state.
At the same time we would like to offer a token of our appreciation to all of you in celebration of record success for the service. And as a thank you for your loyalty during this holiday period, we will be offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available to download free of charge. In the coming weeks we will be sharing the specific details of this offer with you.
Thank you again for helping make Xbox LIVE everything that it is today!
Sincerely,
Marc Whitten
General Manager, Xbox LIVE
Gamertag: Notwen

since it's not a special occasion/circumstance type of thing (like Aegis Wing, Yaris, and Carcassone) it sounds like they'll let you choose the game. I wonder what price limit there is.

 

[PARANOiA]

And as a thank you for your loyalty during this holiday period, we will be offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available to download free of charge.

I read from the wording that they'd pick the game. I suppose it's fairly ambiguous. Would be nice though but I'm guessing it'll be another fairly crappy game like the Joust/Robotron freebies of the past.

 

[slider]

There's no caveat on Gold or Silver membership by the sounds of it (I always was an optimist).

 

[infinity4]

I found somewhere that its for all silver members as well.

*happy silver user* :smile:

 

[nintenho]

There's no caveat on Gold or Silver membership by the sounds of it (I always was an optimist).

it shouldn't be. the "hiccups" were that the dash would take a long time to update so you couldn't access anything you may have got online. that means even if you bought a movie or arcade game, you couldn't access it until you were signed in to Live.

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

Im surprised why there isnt a discussion about the Live Bugs here at B3D. Every forum I go to have atleast 1 topic about it and either im blind or I dont see one here

I can connect to my japanese silver account but whenever I try to connect with my main one, it keeps saying my information is not valid and thats the end of that. I can log in my profile when the console's not connected though

I need to download a couple things (Bioshock patch ) and its annoying that I havent been able to connect for almost 3 weeks now

 

[Acert93]

In a twist of irony, I think "promotions" like this may also serve to give XBLA more exposure. Especially with all of the new consumers picking up the console in the last 4 months, this is a good oppurtunity to nudge them toward the XBLA while they are still actively using the Xbox 360.

 

[Jedi2016]

Depends on what game they offer. I can count the XBLA games I'm interested in on one hand. I'll probably download whatever it is they offer, just because, but I'm not expecting it to be anything I'm excited about.

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

This download is only going to add insult to injury, IMHO. Always wait and see, but I doubt there'll be anything worth 15 minutes of my and my family's/friends' time.

 

[AlphaWolf]

This download is only going to add insult to injury, IMHO. Always wait and see, but I doubt there'll be anything worth 15 minutes of my and my family's/friends' time.

Perhaps you'll get lucky and your console will burst into flames so you won't have to be bothered with it.

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

Perhaps you'll get lucky and your console will burst into flames so you won't have to be bothered with it.

You're right.

The first three times clearly weren't enough.

Edit:

 

[....]

This download is only going to add insult to injury, IMHO. Always wait and see, but I doubt there'll be anything worth 15 minutes of my and my family's/friends' time.

IF they solve the live problems by the time its available. It's quite possible many will have problem downloading this game.(seeing as the problems are still taking place.)

 

[Acert93]

You're right.

The first three times clearly weren't enough.

Edit:

You, sir, will be receiving my dry cleaning bill!

 

[PARANOiA]

Im surprised why there isnt a discussion about the Live Bugs here at B3D. Every forum I go to have atleast 1 topic about it and either im blind or I dont see one here

I can connect to my japanese silver account but whenever I try to connect with my main one, it keeps saying my information is not valid and thats the end of that. I can log in my profile when the console's not connected though

I need to download a couple things (Bioshock patch ) and its annoying that I havent been able to connect for almost 3 weeks now

Are MS's servers regional? I'm in Australia and I'm not having problems any more. I did have a couple of problems with very slow logging on on NYE after not touching my console since Xmas eve.

My guess is they just weren't expecting a growth spike as big as they got in the States, since other regions seem to be doing ok.

Hard to imagine that they couldn't scale appropriately though... I mean, 17 million gamers who likely aren't online all at once isn't going to be a mammoth task given the fees they're charging. Especially when sites like Google and Facebook seem to cope with mammoth amounts of traffic.

Oh, and Bioshock looks even nicer with the new patch Just to rub salt into the wounds.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Are MS's servers regional? I'm in Australia and I'm not having problems any more. I did have a couple of problems with very slow logging on on NYE after not touching my console since Xmas eve.

My guess is they just weren't expecting a growth spike as big as they got in the States, since other regions seem to be doing ok.

Hard to imagine that they couldn't scale appropriately though... I mean, 17 million gamers who likely aren't online all at once isn't going to be a mammoth task given the fees they're charging. Especially when sites like Google and Facebook seem to cope with mammoth amounts of traffic.

Oh, and Bioshock looks even nicer with the new patch Just to rub salt into the wounds.

I doubt google gets the kind of spikes in traffic over holiday periods that live gets.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I doubt google gets the kind of spikes in traffic over holiday periods that live gets.

I'll wager that sites like Google actually have a significant drop-off in traffic in holiday periods as its not a work period. Thats something that I saw from here is that most web browsing is done during workdays...

 

[Dave Baumann]

Get yer free Undertow next week.

Already got it myself, but hopefully now there will be more people online that I can actually get the co-op on Insane difficulty!

[Edit] Having called support I think you'll get a refund on the points you spent on Undertow if you've already bought it. However, The rep I spoke to thinks its not set up to work until next wednesday.

 

[nintenho]

Get yer free Undertow next week.

Already got it myself, but hopefully now there will be more people online that I can actually get the co-op on Insane difficulty!

some people say you can complain to MS about already having the game and they'll give you another one.

 

[AntShaw]

[Edit] Having called support I think you'll get a refund on the points you spent on Undertow if you've already bought it. However, The rep I spoke to thinks its not set up to work until next wednesday.

Great news! Got it myself! Fun game.

A lot og game for 54MB

 

[AzBat]

I almost bought it last week. Nice that it's free. I really liked the demo. Now I can go spend those points on something else. What I don't know, but I'll figure it out sooner or later. LOL

Tommy McClain